La Dormeuse (Bergère dormant à l’ombre d’un buisson de chênes)

Details

JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET (GRUCHY 1814-1875 BARBIZON)
La Dormeuse (Bergère dormant à l’ombre d’un buisson de chênes)
black chalk on paper, upper left corner made up
5 1⁄8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.7 cm.)

Provenance

The artist's studio stamp (L. 1460) (†);
probably, Drouot, Paris, 10-11 May 1875, lot 149, as Bergère endormie. Croquis au crayon noir. 1855.
Alexis Rouart (1839-1911), Paris.
with Gallerie Brame, Paris, (J.-F. Millet Dessinateur, 1938, no. 43, as La Dormeuse).
probably with Gallerie L.-G. Baugin, Paris, by 1952.
with Galerie Marcel Guiot, Paris ("Elles", Évocations Féminines de Watteau à Villon, November-December 1960, no. 69, as La Dormeuse).
Jean Cau (1925-1993), Paris (†); Beaussant and Lefevre, Paris, 16 December 1993, lot 40, where purchased for the present collection.

Literature

R. L. Herbert, Jean-Francois Millet: Grand Palais, 17 Octobre 1975 - 5 Janvier 1976, Paris, 1975, p. 285.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Lucy Speelman Junior Specialist, Head of Part II

lspeelman@christies.com +44 207 752 3074

Lot Essay

This intimate study relates to a pastel executed by Millet in around 1874 titled Bergère dormant à l’ombre d’un buisson de chênes, now in the collection of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims (inv. 899.16.8; see Jean-François Millet, exhib. cat., Lille, October 2017-January 2018, no. 51, p. 86). Figures of shepherdesses, and other women at work in the fields of Barbizon, recur often in Millet's œuvre, both in drawings and in paintings. In his works the artist was able brilliantly to capture the essence of everyday life in rural France.

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